Orlando Fringe review: 'Menage a Prov'

Tod Caviness, Orlando Sentinel

Straight-up short-form improv comedy isn’t quite as prevalent at Fringe as it was last year, but that’s good news for this trio of SAK Comedy Lab veterans. With a diverse grab bag of imaginative games, these guys may be able to deliver all the off-the-cuff yuks you need.

Most of the fodder for their skits is drawn randomly from a pile, but you’re likely to see a good chunk of the possibilities – the biggest strength for these performers is that they know when to end a joke. Darren Vierday, Charles Frierman and Francisco Laboy fell quickly into characters ranging from superheroes to telenovela lovers at the performance I saw, and Frierman’s energy and self-deprecating charm anchored the show.

But it’s really the games themselves that were the star. Some had me anticipating the results before suggestions were even given, like an “audiobook” skit that had Laboy narrating Frierman’s journey through a hallucinogenic children’s novel. Others, like the “two men, one voice” bit, blindsided me with how effective a simple concept can be. All of this builds to a mild letdown when they close with a relatively vanilla game of charades, but the journey there is well worth it.